Power Apps that replace Excel and paper — shipped in 4–8 weeks
We help Houston operations teams turn shared spreadsheets, paper forms, and email attachments into governed Power Apps that work on the phone in the field and sync back to your Microsoft 365 stack. One team covers the data model, canvas or model-driven app, Power Automate flows, mobile UX, and the handover documentation your IT team can actually maintain.
Where Houston teams typically get stuck with Power Apps
Most Houston companies we work with already have Power Apps included in their Microsoft 365 license — the problem is not the tool. It is that the tool alone does not finish the app. Four patterns come up in almost every initial assessment we run.
Ops still runs on Excel and paper
Field crews fill out paper forms, back office re-keys them into a shared spreadsheet, and every report is a manual export.
The internal build stalled at 70%
A business analyst got most of the way there, then the project stopped when they moved teams or left the company.
Nobody owns licensing cost
Per-app, per-user, pay-as-you-go, premium connectors, Dataverse capacity — the finance team wants one clean answer and never gets one.
App sprawl with no owner
Once you have five or more Power Apps, orphaned apps and undocumented flows become a real governance risk.
What our Power Apps engagement covers
Every engagement covers three connected tracks: designing and building new apps, rescuing stalled or orphaned ones, and putting governance in place so the portfolio survives the next reorg. All three are delivered by the same team under one statement of work.
New Power Apps, shipped in weeks
Canvas or model-driven, mobile-first.
- Discovery of the actual workflow, not just the wish list
- Canvas apps for field / mobile teams; model-driven apps for structured back-office data
- Power Automate flows for approvals, notifications, and system-to-system syncs
- Integrations with SharePoint, Dynamics 365, SQL Server, IFS Oracle, Sage 300, Salesforce, SAP
- Offline-capable mobile UX for oilfield, plant floor, and clinical technicians
Finish what your team started
For apps stuck at 70% or inherited from someone who left.
- Audit of an existing canvas or model-driven app you cannot maintain
- Refactor of Power Fx, data model, and connectors to a supportable baseline
- Rebuild of undocumented Power Automate flows with proper naming and error handling
- Fix of premium-connector cost surprises and Dataverse capacity issues
- Written runbook so it never becomes an orphan again
Keep the portfolio healthy
Once you have more than a few apps.
- Environment strategy — dev, test, prod, and how to promote between them
- Data-loss-prevention (DLP) policies aligned with your data classification
- Ownership model and application lifecycle for every app and flow
- Licensing review — Per-App vs Per-User vs Pay-as-you-go for your actual usage
- Team training on Central time and a written maintenance runbook
What Power Apps actually replaces
Most Houston operations teams do not compare Power Apps to another low-code platform. They compare it to the thing they use today — a shared Excel file, a paper form, a standalone SaaS product, or a custom .NET application from a previous vendor. Here is how those four choices trade off.
| Power Apps (built with Sunflower Lab) | Shared Excel file | Paper form / email | Standalone vertical SaaS | Custom .NET build | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Time to first working version | 4–8 weeks | Same day | Same day | 6–12 weeks to configure | 6–12 months |
| Works on a phone in the field | Yes, offline-capable | Painful on mobile | Only if someone types it back | Usually yes | Depends on the build |
| One source of truth | Yes — in Dataverse or your SQL / SharePoint layer | No — every export drifts | No — data lives in filing cabinets | Yes, but isolated from your stack | Yes, if built right |
| Integrates with SharePoint, D365, SQL, IFS Oracle, Sage 300 | Native connectors | Copy-paste only | Manual re-entry | Extra integration project | Custom-coded each time |
| Ongoing cost model | Included in M365 / Per-App or Per-User license | Free — hidden cost is labor | Free — hidden cost is labor | Per-seat SaaS bill, forever | Retainer for maintenance |
| Who owns the app in 12 months? | Named internal owner + documented handover | Whoever last saved it | Nobody | The vendor's roadmap | The dev shop that built it |
| Governance, DLP, audit trail | Included | None | None | Depends on the vendor | Only if you paid for it |
| Best fit | A 100–1,000-person M365 organization with a workflow that involves the field | A one-person process | A team without smartphones | A commodity workflow with no customization | A workflow with no Microsoft-native equivalent |
Note on fit: if your workflow is truly one-of-a-kind or requires deep hardware integration, a custom build may still win. For 90% of Houston ops workflows we see, Power Apps replaces the spreadsheet or paper form directly.
Typical 4 to 8 week timeline
Every engagement follows the same four phases. Actual duration depends on the number of screens, the systems being integrated, and whether we are starting fresh or rescuing an existing app.
Discovery
A 30-minute call followed by a 3-day workflow walkthrough — the current Excel file, the paper form, the SharePoint site, the systems it touches. A written scope is provided at the end of week one.
Design & prototype
A clickable canvas or model-driven prototype in your tenant, wired to real Dataverse or SharePoint data. Your ops team clicks through it before we build the rest.
Build & integrate
Screens, forms, Power Fx logic, offline caching, Power Automate approval flows, and connectors to SharePoint, Dynamics 365, SQL Server, IFS Oracle, or your ERP of record.
Training & handover
Live training for admins and end users, a written runbook, environment and DLP setup, and 30 days of post-launch support. Monthly retainer available for ongoing maintenance.
Selected Power Apps engagements
Three recent Power Apps engagements across manufacturing, field operations, and healthcare technology. Each began with fragmented spreadsheets or paper and ended with a governed app portfolio that operators actually use.
AMOT Controls — Personal Time Off Power App
AMOT's HR team was managing leave requests through email and a shared spreadsheet, with no visibility for managers and no audit trail for HR. Scope of work: a canvas Power App for employees to submit PTO requests, a Power Automate approval flow to route requests to the correct manager, and a SharePoint back-end that HR can query for balances and reporting.
United Utility — 20+ Power Apps across 7 divisions
United Utility ran electrical-construction field operations on disconnected Excel files and SharePoint workarounds, with union payroll calculated manually and no real-time leadership visibility. Scope of work: 20+ Power Apps (Daily Field Reports, Chester and Roster timesheets with a custom payroll logic engine, equipment allocation, employee and equipment transfers, work-order upload and QAQC), 14+ Power BI reports, Power Automate flows, and integration with Sage 300 and Microsoft Teams.
IONM Provider — Case-capture workflow across clinical systems
Case data, physician records, and billing information were spread across Cadwell, Revedy, HubSpot, and payer platforms, with technicians re-entering the same information into three systems for every case. Scope of work: a model-driven Power App as the single case-capture surface for technicians, with Power Automate bots pulling case files and technician records, syncing HubSpot to eliminate duplicate entry, and posting back to Cadwell and Revedy for coding and case updates.
Real-Time Labor & Margin Visibility for Pediatric Practice
Connect Pediatrics, a multi-branch pediatric practice, had no patient-level visibility into revenue, payroll cost, labor percentage, staffing percentage, or overtime exposure, leaving margin risk buried in manual reports. Sunflower Lab built a Power BI dashboard on SharePoint with branch, patient, and clinician-level views, plus automatic outlier detection for high labor percentage, excessive overtime, and understaffing.
Certified Microsoft Solutions Partner
Sunflower Lab holds Microsoft Solutions Partner status for Power Apps, Power Automate, and SharePoint. This designation requires audited technical delivery, application-lifecycle discipline, and client-outcome standards defined by Microsoft.
Frequently asked questions
Request a Power Apps consultation
Schedule a 30-minute call to walk through one process you would like to stop doing by hand. You will receive a written scope tailored to your environment and a fixed-price estimate within three business days.
